By: Stephen G. Fellajuah
There seems to be a serious crisis within the Musician Union of Liberia as two senior executives of the organization, the Vice President for Administration, Mr. McDonald Parcular and Vice President for Operations, Miss Miatta L. Kamara have all resigned citing financial malpractices against the President, Sammy Gboguy
According to the two former officials, Mr. Gboguy has allegedly been single handedly financially transacting the organization with no accountability. Giving some instances of financial impropriety against their former boss, they said Gboguy in his capacity received LD$150,000 from the Government of Liberia through the office of Ambassador Juli Endee for the July 26 celebration but that the president denied ever receiving such amount.
“All of the musicians that registered and paid for their ID card up to this time no financial records, the vice president for operations raised some money around US$ 500 which she turned over to Gboguy who claimed it was government money but has failed to present receipt of any payment”, they said.
The former executives also narrated how Gboguy unilaterally runs the affairs of the Union without the consent of the other executive members, alleging that he moves around with the office of the Musicians Union in his bag. They further accused him of not having a clear cut plan to move the institution forward, not working with the other executives and never allowing them to perform their functions.
“The President is single handedly running the affairs of the Union. No board, no Article of incorporation. We were seven that got elected but Mr.Gboguy has chosen to do the works of the other executives. He is not giving us the chance to function in our various offices, he has overstepped his bound”, they stated.
They said one of the reasons that made them resign their portfolios is that they do not want to be considered as contributors to the failure of the organization after exerting all the efforts to work with him to ensure that the music industry is improved.
“We sent in our letters of resignation about two weeks ago. We served over two years as vice Presidents for Administration and Operation respectively for the Union. We took an oath to work towards the betterment of members of the Union but things are proceeding wrongly because of a split in the organization.”
Continuing they said, “We invited him for a meeting where he agreed to work on his mistakes, yet nothing has been done. The work we are supposed to do for musicians is yet to be done, piracy all across the country and people are making profane songs and the union is doing nothing about it”. They stressed that the hope of Liberian musicians is to find someone better to lead the Union.
All efforts to contact Gboguy proved futile as his telephone number rang endlessly.
However, some top Liberian stars who spoke on anonymity in separate statements, said since the ascendency of Gboguy as President of the Musicians Union of Liberia, the organization is just in Central Monrovia, and pointed out that he has failed to decentralize activities of the organization. They predicted that the Gboguy’s leadership style will lead the Union down the drain, because as it stands the organization is making no impact in the lives of Liberian musicians.
“We only hear that we have union, but the question is, what they are doing, what impact can we point to”, they wondered.
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